Seeking Sponsorship

If you have made a change to the package and you do not have rights to upload the package then you will need to seek a sponsor.

Note that most sponsorship is still done via debdiffs, and some sponsors will prefer that, so you may wish to attach a diff to the bug as well.

1 - Linking to bugs

You will need a bug report to seek sponsorship you should close this issue from your debian/changelog. Fill in the changelog entry by running dch -i and add the LP: #12345 entry as normal. For example:

python-soaplib (0.0+svn44-2ubuntu1) lucid; urgency=low

  * debian/control: Set XS-Python-Version for compatibility >= 2.5 (LP: #494704)

 -- Barry Warsaw <barry@canonical.com>  Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:33:52 -0500

As of Intrepid, the best way to commit this is to put the bug number in the changelog, and use debcommit. This will issue the correct bzr command, linking it to the Launchpad bug you've specified. Make sure to use text of the form "LP: #12345, #12346"; if you leave out the space or the # then debcommit will not detect it. You can use debcommit -n to check what it's going to do.

Now, when you push the branch to launchpad it will link the branch and the bug report.

It is not critical to have a link to a bug for every change you make, but if you are fixing reported bugs then linking to them will be useful.

2 - Pushing to Launchpad

Now you should push the branch to launchpad so that it can be retrieved by others. You do this by pushing it to a branch under your user.

$ bzr push lp:~james-w/ubuntu/karmic/seccure/seccure-fix-12345

where you change "james-w" for your launchpad username, and "karmic" for the release that you are targetting.

If you linked a commit to a bug number using debcommit then this will show up on the bug page as having a possible fix for the bug.

However, this usually isn't enough to get Ubuntu developers to review your change. You should next propose a merge so that the developers can find your fix and review it.

To do this open your page in a browser, e.g.

$ bzr lp-open

if that fails, then you can use

$ xdg-open https://code.launchpad.net/~james-w/ubuntu/karmic/seccure/seccure-fix-12345

where most of the URL matches what you used for "push". Then you can use the link "Propose for merging into another branch", and then type in an explanation of your change in the "Initial Comment" box. Set the "Reviewer" to be either "ubuntu-main-sponsors" or "ubuntu-universe-sponsors" depending on whether the package is in main/restricted or universe/multiverse. Lastly click "Propose Merge" in order to complete the process.

3 - Generating a debdiff

As noted in the beginning most of the sponsors still prefer sponsoring debdiff attached to bug reports.

One way is to run the following command from your branch.

$ bzr diff -rbranch:../seccure

Another way is to is to open the merge proposal and download the diff.

You should ensure that diff has the changes you expect, no more and no less.

Name the diff appropriately e.g. seccure-fix-12345.debdiff and attach it to the bug report.

4 - Dealing with feedback from sponsors

If a sponsor reviews your change and asks you to change something then you can do this fairly easily. Simply go to the branch that you were working in before and make the changes requested, and then commit.

$ bzr commit

Now you can push your changes up to launchpad as before, but bzr will have remembered where you pushed to, so you can simply run

$ bzr push

Then you can reply to the request for changes explaining what you changed and asking for re-review, or reply on the merge proposal page in Launchpad.

Note if you are sponsored via debdiff attached to a bug report you need to manually update it as described in step 3.

CategoryDistributedDevelopment